0Dustin0 Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 I’ve been looking all over to try and find info on what would be considered “too hot” when heating your work. How do you know if you’ve heated your work to hot? I’ve tried to do some searches but they didn’t really come back with anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 It depends on the type of metal you are heating and how hot you want the metal to be when you work it. For mild steel, 4th of July sparkler means you are burning the metal. Lessons in Blacksmithing Seeing Colors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 "Too Hot" is dependent on ALLOY and what you are trying to do with it. For real mild steel (not A-36) Yellow is a good temp to do ornamental work at. For welding real wrought iron "snow ball" can work well. For forging H-13 an orange may work----if it starts cottage cheesing it's too hot. Some alloys are hot short others are cold short. Another aspect is how you like to work; if you are fast a higher heat may work for you, if you are slow high heats have more time to go sideways on you. Sort of like how much garlic should you put in something you are cooking: depends on the dish and on your preferences! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 Take Glenn's advice and heat a piece of mild steel until it's spitting sparks and then you will know what too hot is. Here's a chart for the rest. Pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 Note: when the old books talk about "cherry red" they are NOT talking about Bing cherries but the old pie cherries which are a much brighter colour! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swedefiddle Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 Good Morning, The wonderful world of perspective. No two people see the same colour, No two people see the same thing in an object. If you are looking at a picture of something, some people focus more on what is in the Background than what the picture main character is. Enjoy the learning of colours. Take a piece of scrap, heat it in the forge until you see sparkles on one end. Sparkles is burning, you can see all the other shades of the above colour chart in the one piece. Don't throw that piece away, you can use it again for the same function. Above, Thomas said there are variables. It is true, Steel is like Vegetable soup. The soup your Mom made is never the same as what your neighbour made. Most of the Steel manufactures have agreed on what kind of Soup they are making. Neil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 Absolutely correct. You have to learn the way you see color at different temps. Pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0Dustin0 Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 Thanks everyone for the replies! Appreciate the info. I’ll have to do some testing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CtG Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 I always related "cherry" to maraschino cherries, like what always came in my Shirley Temples when I was a kid. Perspective indeed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBones Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 5 hours ago, ThomasPowers said: Some alloys are hot short others are cold short. Thomas, could you elaborate a little on what you mean by short? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 I'm not Thomas but short means gets brittle or cracks. Hot short means cracks or gets brittle when worked too hot and cold short is the opposite. Gets brittle or cracks when worked too cold. Pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 Historically having sulfur in the iron made it hot short and was a big problem when they started using coal/coke for smelting iron. In modern times they figured out that Manganese would scavenge the sulfur and help with the issue---why even "straight, clean alloys" (like the 10XX series always tend to have Mn in them. (And why swedish "charcoal iron" was considered so superior for several hundred years after everyone else was smelting with coke.) Likewise having phosphorus in iron made it cold short, Roasting the ore could help reduce the P in the ore; but avoiding ore sources that contained much of it was the preferred method. (Bog ores often contained P). HOWEVER, P is also a hardneing element; in Pleiner's "The Celtic Sword" there were examples where they were trying to use higher P alloys for the edges of swords. If you read specs you will notice that S and P are listed in the specs as a "Maximum Allowed" and on a report often as "Below XYZ" As various countries had ores with various elements in them a smith of several hundred years ago would know what countries metal was good for what purposes and TEST a new buy of wrought iron to be sure they were getting what they were paying for; Moxon's Mechanicks Exercises, published 1703 talks a bit about this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnut Posted February 1, 2020 Share Posted February 1, 2020 I think a lack of calcium oxide also plays a part in cold short iron. Pnut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBones Posted February 1, 2020 Share Posted February 1, 2020 Ok thanks guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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